This bit comes out of some thinking that I’ve been doing in relation to understanding how to encounter religious others with the gospel. I thought it might be interesting to hear from some of you on this topic.
Dialogue is not a new method for communicating with religious others. The modern use is often associated with the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Their respective meetings at New Delhi in 1961 and Second Vatican Council from 1962-1965 set the tone for interfaith dialogue. However, according to David Hesselgrave, as a result “witness and dialogue have been combined in such a way as to make world evangelization by ecumenists unlikely if not impossible.”
The English word “dialogue” comes from the Greek dialegomai, which is used 13 times in the New Testament, ten of them in Acts. All of the uses in Acts deal with the Apostle Paul. When Luke uses it to describe what Paul was doing, it is often translated in the New American Standard Bible as “reasoning” (6 times in Acts 17:2, 17; 18:4, 19; 19:8, 9), “talking” (2 times in Acts 20:7, 8) or “discussion” (2 times in Acts 24:12, 25). In Attic Greek dialegomai is derived from dialogos and means “conversation.” It seems apparent that Paul was conversing with various people and his conversation was two-way probably in a Socratic form. It was not a one-way conversation where the apostle told others how things were or should be.
This manner in which Paul dialogued with religious others has several important characteristics. Paul understood his role as an apostle to be one of proclamation of the gospel in order that the eyes of the Jews and Gentiles would be opened and they would turn to the light. He relates his commission by Christ to King Agrippa, “To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). Whereas to the Jews Paul framed the gospel in the context of Jewish history to the Gentiles his message was framed in the context of creation history culminating in Christ (Acts 17:31).
According to Paul, God’s witness of himself is creation (Acts 14:17; Rom 1:20-21). The natural world as well as the imago Dei in humanity testifies to the creative act of God and His desire to have a relationship with us. Paul, rather than focusing on the sinful nature of humanity in his dialogue, focused on the genuine searching of the religious for God. To Paul this searching seemed natural because we are all the “children of God” (Acts 17:29). God, being the father of all, desires to have a relationship with all and thus Paul communicates his understanding that God is not only transcendent but also immanent:
The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ (Acts 17:24-28)
In Athens, he seems to identify this searching as a positive desire to know truth (Acts 17:22). William Larkin states, “Here we have a respectful recognition of religious endeavors but not an acknowledgement that they lead to true, saving faith.” Paul’s “respectful recognition of religious endeavors” is not out of ignorance, “Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols” (Acts 17:16). Paul’s “observing” (the Greek theoreo) was in response to something he had never encountered. The Greek here has the idea that in his observation he was also trying to understand what he encountered. Interestingly enough, it is after his observation that he begins a dialogue with the people of the city, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are a very religious in all respects, for while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with the inscription, ‘To an Unknown God’” (Acts 17:22-23).
Two things are apparent in the apostle’s dialogue. His dialogue was not so much a call to repentance from sin per se, but to a turning from ignorance to knowledge of God through Christ. It appears in Paul’s dialogue with Gentile audiences in Acts that he rarely addresses sin accompanied with the need for repentance. We get his focus on sin in the epistles, but in the epistles he is addressing Christians. Instead, Paul addresses the need to believe and turn from vain worship (Acts 14:15) that is done in ignorance (17:30) to the living God. Paul did not necessarily bring a person to the point of conversion and challenge them to accept Christ as a response from those with whom he dialogued. However, if there was a response it generally had two characteristics. First, Paul emphasized the need of a cognitive act whereby belief was changed. Second, Paul expected a behavioral response corresponding to the cognitive act.
Unfortunately, the evangelical method of dialogue rarely takes into account the beliefs of religious others. Hesselgrave comments:
“The best hope for world evangelization is that those conservative evangelicals who have tended to speak without listening and to ‘pick and choose’ rather than give attention to the whole counsel of God, reconsider the proclamational dialogue method of the New Testament.”
Miroslav Volf suggests that the church has not been the “salt of the world” as it should have been. Instead, it has only heightened the distinction of exclusivity and distanced itself from social others, forming a new culture. What is needed is a church that enacts its Christian faith rather than a church that preaches a Christian faith that it does not enact.
What do you think?
Communicating the Gospel
Michael, there are some great thoughts here. In my view, this emphasis on conversation and on recognizing what is good in other religious endeavours is very important currently given both the postmodern context and the extent to which the church has become alienated from its cultural matrix. (I saw The Matrix: Revolutions last night. My read on it: faith and reason come to an uneasy truce, machines suspiciously magnanimous, more trouble to follow.)
The argument that Paul’s preaching to the Gentiles centred on an invitation to true worship rather than a call to repentance from personal sin is interesting and, if worked through consistentyly, might correct many of the failings of modern evangelism. Perhaps, though, the two ideas are closer than you suggest. Repentance from sin is, to Paul’s way of thinking, fundamentally a repentance from idolatry: the argument in Romans 1 is that moral sin is a consequence of worshipping idols instead of God; the Thessalonians ‘repented’ from idolatry to ‘serve a living and true God’ (1 Thess.1:9). Still, your point is correct (if I understand you properly): it makes sense in the context of postmodern paganism to make the central challenge of the gospel that of abandoning idolatrous structures of thought and belief in order to grasp the reality of the living God.
The other thought that I have (it’s becoming a bit of an obsession) is that we always need to take into account the eschatological setting of Paul’s preaching, whether to Jews or to Gentiles. The immediate horizon of Paul’s ‘dialogue’ in Athens is judgment (Acts 17:30-31), and I think that Paul saw this as an imminent reality. If, as I have suggested elsewhere, this must be understood in concrete historical terms as judgment on Graeco-Roman paganism, the possibility arises that in a post-eschatological situation we should take a more constructive stance vis-Ã -vis other faiths. The call to worship the true God through Christ remains but we may be less judgmental and not exclusively preoccupied with safeguarding a place of pure Christian worship. Part of our ‘priestly’ ministry within a pluralistic society may well be to help people pursue their best spiritual instincts within their own faith context. That may be more than you are suggesting in your article, but it seems to me that we ought to be asking these questions.
Andrew,Thanks for your co
Andrew,
Thanks for your comments.
You note: “Part of our ‘priestly’ ministry within a pluralistic society may well be to help people pursue their best spiritual instincts within their own faith context. That may be more than you are suggesting in your article, but it seems to me that we ought to be asking these questions.”
I agree if our priestly ministry moves people to see the “ignorance” or “lack of understanding,” in Paul’s terms, of their worship. Paul pointed it out in Athens. However, we need to keep in mind that he was invited into the discussion versus our contemporary methods of evangelism that doesn’t wait for an invitation.
What about Idolatry
Quoting Andrew:
The beginning of the Athens narrative states, “[Paul] was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” The “So” in the following phrase seems to indicate this concern as a primary motivator for his activities to follow. While Paul proves that dialogue is important, we should be careful in our priestly duties not to encourage people to continue in a “faith context” that is idolatry. While it may be one thing to help a person of a different Christian denomination to grow within that context, it is entirely some thing different to do the same for a Hindu (unless we disagree with Paul that the worship of idols is participation with demons).
The idea of a “Court of the Gentiles,” if this is the place that such a conversation might occur, should still be faithful to the nature of God. It should be noted that the seperation between the Jewish men and the Gentiles at the temple was primarily ethnic and a metter of ceremonial cleanliness. Both courts, however, where involved in the worship of the One God. It would have been unthinkable to have an alter to the Greek gods placed in the court of the Gentiles in order to accomidate their culture and make them feel more comfortable. Likewise, our court of the Gentiles must still be focused on the One God, who seems rather intolerant of other gods. An example application could be premaritial sex. Should we accept those who practice it as individuals whom God loves? Yes. Can we approve of the practice in any way if it is an alliegence to the American idol of sexuality?
If the conversation is even outside the “court of the Gentiles”, as perhaps it should be (Paul was actually working entering the places of worship and life of those he was reasoning with: synogogues, marketplace, and Areopagus), we must always have within us a deep concern for trapped by idolatry and sin.
Maybe all thse thoughts are obvious, but I struggle with being pluralistic in practice and ministry as a coping skill in diversity and plaruaistic at heart and ignoring harmful alligences in the lives of those to whom I minister, including the unchurched.
Priests in the world
Ben, thanks for your comments. You highlight some key issues and I appreciate your openness about the struggle to embody the truth in a pluralistic culture. Let me respond to your general line of thought.
First, there is no room for idolatrous worship within the covenant community. Creational monotheism also must remain a universal ideal: Christian mission cannot lose sight of the fact that Hinduism, to take your example, falls short of this ideal. The question is: How do we deal with this shortfall? Traditionally, on the basis of a strongly salvational model of mission, evangelicals have pushed the challenge of making a decision for or against the true God to the forefront, often to the exclusion of other possibilities and often to the detriment of social relations. My use of the court of the Gentiles metaphor was an attempt to open up a less confrontational, more interactive space between belief and disbelief. Obviously it has its limitations as a metaphor and should not be pressed too far, but I think it suggests rather powerfully the possibility of a meaningful approach to the One God, a place of searching, that is not subject to the same rules of behaviour, belief and worship that apply to the covenant people. I strongly feel that we need models and metaphors such as this which do not alienate the church from its social and cultural environment. In some ways this may appear morally and spiritually hazardous, but I am more inclined to think that as we move out of the sanctuary into these outer spaces, we will find that our convictions and commitments as the people of God are strengthened rather than weakened.
Of course, part of the reason for entering into conversation with other faiths, etc., is to invite people to become part of the people of God, to cross the boundary that separates seekers from finders. But is that the only way in which as priests of God in the world we may be a light to the nations? What I think we need to do is learn how to live in conversation with people, live as friends, and to be genuinely ‘useful’ because we are helping them to discover a better way of being human. Surely it’s better to be present for people as priests of the living God than not to be there at all? We would like people to be personally God-centred, to have the Spirit of God within them. But it must also be a good thing for people to be communally or socially God-centred, to live as pagans in the hinterland of the city of God?
What I would like to see is individuals and (better) small groups of believers who generate around themselves an interactive spiritual space like the court of the Gentiles. But this initiates an open-ended and indeterminate process, the success of which cannot be measured merely by counting conversions or baptisms. The more fundamental question would be: Are we effectively engendering a sense of the presence of the living God for people? It is perhaps a secondary matter whether some of those who encounter the living God in this way choose themselves to become part of the solution.